Day 3
After the 2nd days hunting, we ate dinner and took off to the area where we would be hunting the Cape Buffalo and checked into the lodge. We were assigned a suite and then met the lodge manager and his wife for drinks and apps around the fire pit.
Was awesome to be sitting in Africa listening to the sounds as darkness settled over the land.
The next morning, we got up and had a early breakfast then set out just as dawn was breaking to find a good Cape Buffalo. I was excited and I'm not gonna lie, a little nervous. This was my first Dangerous Game hunt and the mistake on the Warthog was still hanging over my psyche...haunting me. When the time came with a Cape Buffalo, I didn't want to be thinking about mistakes, just about placing a killing shot. So I shelved the negative thoughts and jumped in the hunting vehicle.
It didn't take very long to get to a good glassing spot where Marius and the ranch manager expected we could see Buffalo and look for a trophy.
They were correct.
We got to the top of a hill where we could see 2-3 miles in all directions. In front of us was a steep canyon choked with brush and across the canyon, up the other side was a grass plain that held two separate herds of buffalo that could be plainly seen with the naked eye. The were just under a mile away as the crow flies. Marius looked over the two herds and set his sights on a old hard bossed bull. The road we drove out on actually continued down through the valley and up along the grass flats but the vehicle would certainly spook them. So the plan was to go down through the canyon and back up the other side and inch up the edge of grass plain, hopefully before they finished feeding and started heading back into the thick cover. That mile as the crow flies was more like 2+ miles down and back up.
So we left the ranch manager and Lloyd the tracker on the hill with their binoculars and the spotting scope and a hand held two way radio so he could let us know if they moved and keep us sneaking on line as we made our way through the canyon. A real military style operation.
Nick, a PH that works for Marius was earning his Dangerous Game certification so he joined us in order to gain DG experience. So Marius, Nick and their 62 year old client took off down through the canyon. The going down was easy enough, I just had to pick my way through making sure I didn't roll an ankle (or worse) on a loose rock or something. When we got to the bottom, we checked with our spotter who guided us to a slight course correction to insure we came up in front of the old guy., then started up the hill. I was not in near as good of shape as I wished I was so we picked our way up the hill slowly, stopping occasionally for me to get my breath. We were about 1/3 up the other side when our spotter let us know the bull we were after and 6 cows had left the grass plain and were heading down into the canyon right at us!!!
There was a small two track road running across the hillside we we moved downwind so the buffalo would cross that road upwind of us and set up the shooting sticks waiting for the buffalo to cross. But the buffalo had other plans....they bedded down on the hillside above us!!!
So now we had a bit of a pickle. The buffalo were bedded above us, less than 100 yards away. So we put a plan together to try and get closer see if we could not work into a shooting position. We had a crosswind so the wind was in our favor and we starting inching further up the hill closing the gap. At first we crouched but as was got closer we were on our hands and knees to keep from being seen. Crawling up a rock/gravel hillside inches at a time, while trying to make sure we did not break and twigs or roll loose stone was slow going. I was thankful for the build in knee pads on my KUIU Pro Pants but actually wished the padding was 2x as thick (feedback I gave to KUIU after my hunt) Even with the pads in the pants my knees took a beating.
Eventually we worked to within 50 yards of the group of buffalo. We were at the edge of a small clearing and could pick out black shapes in the grass on the other side of the clearing bedded down. We could hear the Buffalo making whatever sounds Buffalo make when bedded. Whispering into the radio, Marius got the news we were dreading from out spotter. The bull was at the back of the group from us, with the cows between us.
We were screwed.
Knowing the Buffalo would probably spend most of the day bedded where they were, then head back up to the grass flats towards evening we had no choice but to back out the way we came and put a plan together for the evening. If we spooked the buffalo and educated them that they were being hunted, they would stay in the thick stuff until after dark for several days and we wanted them unaware of us and our desire to put that bull on the dirt. So we crawled back down the hill until we were out of sight, then got up and walked back to the truck to regroup and strategize a plan for the evening.
We decided that if we came back in the early afternoon we could drive to the far side of the grassland without disturbing the bedded buffalo and sneak back toward the bedded Buffalo and wait for them to climb back up to feed in the grassland.
So we left Lloyd the tracker with a cooler of drinks and lunch and the handheld radio. He sat in the shade a tree on the hillside watching the buffalo while we went to lodge for lunch.
Early afternoon saw Nick, Marius and I take a route around the buffalo to the back of the grass flats where we parked the vehicle and hiked the mile or so back through the grass toward the edge of the canyon where the Buffalo were bedded. Once again our spotters on the far hill across the canyon almost a mile a way directed us to keep us on line with the bedded buffalo and we set up behind a tree waiting for buffalo to return to feed. We again had a stiff crosswind going left to right and slightly in our face, so if they came out to our left, they were be upwind of us, and if they came out to our right they would have to get past us before they could smell us and we should have time to kill the bull before they were in position to wind us.
Our spotters were sure we should be able to see them, as we were less than 50 yards from the Buffalo they told us. We could hear them but we could not see them. The slope from the edge of the canyon and the tall grass and small trees kept them mostly hidden. A couple times Nick and Marius could get a glimpse of black through the grass and trees but could not make if it was the bull or a cow, much less see the kill zone.
This pic was taken through the spotting scope from the far hillside and shows just how close we were!!!
By now it was after 2:30pm and we could get no closer and the best plan was to just wait them out. The sun would be behind the hills by 5pm and we hoped they would come out well before that.
So we settled in and waited.....3pm....3:30pm....4pm....still sitting behind the tree with the shooting sticks in position waiting for the Buffalo to emerge up the hillside below us.
4:30pm and the sun was getting close to settling behind the hills to our west when all of a sudden our spotter came over the radio and said "Their moving!!!!"
But once again, the buffalo forgot to follow the plan. Instead of coming straight up out of the canyon to us, they were angling up to our left coming out to feed by moving slowly away from us as they did so!!!
When Marius heard this the gathered the shooting sticks and we hastily did a half circle back from the edge of the hillside and 100 or so yards to our left while crouching low in the the tall grass to get in front of them and then got a tree between us and moved into position. By now the sun was behind the hillside to our west and darkness was just starting to come on!
No sooner had we set up in the new position, then a black form came slowing around a bush 85 yards away...then followed by another...and another.
I was in the sticks with the safety off (and finger outside the trigger guard!) and looking through the Leupold Var-X III 1.5x5 scope, I never saw the bull's head as he moved, slowly feeding through the tall grass. But Marius and Nick looking through their binoculars, assured me that the bull we wanted was the lead animal so I was going on their counsel. The bull's head was down in the grass, and the grass covered his legs, so I was a bit challenged trying to find the sweet spot on his shoulder 1/3 of the way up his body that would give me a heart/lung shot through the near leg/shoulder. I had little for reference besides a large black body with no head, legs or tail. I was just able to make out his shoulder but at 85 yards, in the fading light I was wishing for a little more magnification than my scope set on 5x was giving me. I just wanted to have a little more detail to find the "spot on the spot" of the shoulder to help me "aim small" But it was what it was and now the bull was starting to angle slightly away and it was getting darker by the second....so it was now or never!
I settled the scope just behind what I could make out as his shoulder for a shot forward through the lungs and squeezed the trigger.
BOOM...the Federal Hi Energy load pushing a 300 grain Trophy Bonded Bearclaw ignited and split the darkness with sound and fire. The Buffalo took off back down into the canyon without giving any indication of a hit but I was confident my shot was good...just praying that the spot I picked to shoot was correct.
Over the radio we got news that the group had run down hill into the bush but that the bull had stumbled and then got back up and started running again. We also were informed that the bull had split off from the main group. Both good indications of a solid hit ... but God knows how many hunters thought they had a dead Cape Buffalo, later to find out they didn't! We told the ranch manager to bring the hunting vehicle with Lloyd and the the tracking dogs Flex and Rigby while we stood on the edge of the slope looking and listening down into the thick brush. We listened for a "death bellow"...but never heard one. Marius reminded me that many times that doesn't happen. The whole time I was there with my .375 on and scope down to 1.5 while Marius had his .500 Nitro Express Double and Nick with a .416 Rem Mag all ready to unload if a pissed off, wounded Buffalo started coming our way.
A couple minutes later the hunting truck was next to us and the dogs were fitted with tracking collars with flashing lights so we could follow their movement through the brush as we set them on the trail in the direction the bull had run. There was zero blood trail and Rigby struggled a bit to find "the track" in the midst of lots of buffalo tracks. But quickly, Flex, the wise old veteran of many, many tracking jobs picked of the smell of a wounded animal even without a blood trail and took off into the bush. A couple minutes later we heard the "yap yap yap" of Flex signaling he had found "his animal". Problem is we didn't know if "his" animal was dead or cornered waiting for the people that eventually follow tracking dogs in.
Slowly the 3 of us inched forward, spread out, but in line side by side through the ever darkening bush. Guns were at the shoulder with safety off pointing in the direction of the barking dogs. By now Rigby had joined Flex and both of them were yapping away so we had no problem knowing the line. But it was getting darker by the second and we wanted to end the drama before it was pitch black. Tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife when we got to within 30 yards and could see the lights of the dogs collars in front of us.
Suddenly we could see the black form on the ground 20 yards in front of us! Marius called his dogs to him and I put an insurance shot into the buff....he never flinched. Marius inched forward and touched the bull's eye with the barrel of his double rifle. No reaction. He was stone dead from my first shot but there is no such thing as a wasted insurance shot on a buffalo...especially in thick cover...and especially with darkness almost upon us.
Relief flowed through the group and there were high fives all around. Hastily I got down by the Buff's head and Nick took a flash photo to capture forever the moment I found my first Cape Buffalo after a adrenaline filled hunt. You cant see much of the Buff's head in that photo but you can see the expression on my face and the thickness of the cover and the darkness we were in...all of which captures the moment more than the size/shape of his horns and boss.
The ranch manager called for a tractor and 30 minutes later a team of guys rolled my Cape Buffalo onto the platform and the tractor carried him up out of the bush to a clearing where we set him up to come back in the morning and take the "formal" trophy photos.
All I knew is that at that moment, I was overcome with the knowledge that a 20+ year dream of hunting a Cape Buffalo had been achieved.
The problem is....now I want to hunt MORE Cape Buffalo
We got back to lodge and informed Toni, my wife, that I was still alive and a Cape Buffalo wasn't. She has gone along and took the photographic story of many of hunts but she just plain did not want to be there when I shot a Cape Buffalo in case things went wrong. So she spent the afternoon on a game drive taking photos and then drinking wine wondering if she would be a widow at the end of the day LOL
I think she was happy she wasn't a widow in spite of losing out on the prospect of collecting a life insurance payment.
This is what my knees looked like after hunting Cape Buffalo
